What We Defenders of Republican Secular Liberty and Charlie are fighting for.

HS draws comparisons with this picture, Liberty Leading the PeopleEugène Delacroix

Which reminds me of a very famous song from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables (I am talking of the book not the musical), by the little Gravoche about events which brought this to life.

“During the student uprising of June 5–6, 1832, Gavroche joins the revolutionaries at the barricade. After an exchange of gunfire with the National Guards, Gavroche overhears Enjolras remark that they are running out of cartridges. He decides he can help. He goes through an opening in the barricade and collects the cartridges from the dead bodies of the National Guard. In the process of collecting the cartridges and singing a song, he is shot and killed.”

“The words of the song sung by Gavroche before his death are a parody of conservative views about the French Revolution: blaming all alleged modern social and moral ills on the influence of Voltaire and Rousseau. Gavroche sings “Joie est mon caractère / C’est la faute à Voltaire / Misère est mon trousseau / C’est la faute à Rousseau.” (I have a cheerful character / It’s Voltaire’s fault / Misery is my bridal gown / It’s Rousseau’s fault).”

The lad is loved and remembered by all.

Charlie’s wonderful cartoonists, Jews and policeman have been murdered.

According to some sections of the British left..

Their deaths are the fault of Voltaire and Rousseau and all those who are inspired by the French republican ideals ofLiberté, Égalité, Fraternité.

Ha, hs Toad-in-the-Hole, life’s so much more fun if we abolish reality. We can let our imaginations soar!!!!!. By the way, I think it is incredibly racist to a) accuse modern Westerners of racism and b) ignore the murders of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, nay, MILLIONS, in contested Islamic countries by Jihadists. Don’t those people count?

The kindest thing one can say about these ‘anti-Enlightenment’ types is that they are willing tools of the OIC. The Organisation of Islamic Co-Operation which has long been aiming to make criticism of Islam ie blasphemy a criminal offence. It is a CAPITAL offence in many, if not all, Muslim countries so obviously the post-Enlightenment types are happy with that.

Seymour remarked several years ago that dialectics are bollocks. Everything you need to know about him right there. Semi-coincidentally, yesterday I was reading VI Lenin from 1922 — about the importance of teaching materialist dialectics in the context of militant atheism.

For all their republicanism & separating church from state, what did ‘leftists’ do in the General Assembly yesterday when the question came up about blowing people apart with bombs rather than bullets? How did they view foreigners deserving to be on the receiving end of heavy munitions?

Did they get into the swing of things by singing the National Anthem? Then the main event, the vote on whether to continue bombing ISIS in Iraq – & anyone else who got in the way. There are 577 members of the Assembly, & the vote yesterday went 488 to 1 (so 88 either abstained, didn’t vote, or didn’t turn up). What part did ‘leftists’ play in this? Were they there & abstained? Does anyone know?

The French electoral system is strongly inegalitarian, highly undemocratic: in the 1st round the Front National, the 3rd biggest party, got 46% of the Socialist Party vote, 3.5m compared with 7.6m, but only ended up with two seats whereas the SP got not a proportional three but 280 – & the Liberal Democrats in the UK used to feel hard done by!

So how many ‘leftists’ are there in the National Assembly? Perhaps 61. The turnout in round one was 57% – so the most popular ‘vote’ by far was for the ‘Abstain Party’ (almost 20m of the 46m). It meant 26.4m voted; for ‘leftists’ it was 5m: 1.8m Front de gauche (4th biggest party; ended up with 10 seats); 0.88m “Divers gauche” (miscell., Interior Ministry term; 22 seats); 0.43m Parti Radical de Gauche (12 seats); 0.25m “Extrême gauche”; 1.4m Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts (17 seats); 0.25m “Ecologiste”.http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Elections/Les-resultats/Legislatives/elecresult__LG2012/%28path%29/LG2012//FE.html

And why did that guy (party undisclosed by Associated Press) vote against? “One lawmaker argued not to extend the campaign, saying the situation on the ground was improving and warning that more bombing could invite more extremist violence”. No kidding.